Defections prompt calls for change in Cuban sports

[Bacchus39]

http://news.yahoo.com/defections-prompt-calls-change-cuban-sports-040129976.html

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba's version of the New York Yankees, the powerhouse Industriales, won the country's 2010 baseball championship with lights-out pitching by Armando Rivero and Joan Socarras and stellar hitting from Leguim Barroso.

All three players have since defected, along with four other members of the championship squad, leaving the punchless team struggling to a losing season this year.

Those were hardly isolated cases. Five National Ballet dancers stayed behind in Toronto after a performance in March. In June, soccer player Yosniel Mesa shimmied down a hotel fire escape and hopped into a waiting car in North Carolina.

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Mesa, who now manages the team Matanzas in the Cuban league, said he favors letting Cubans play in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Japan, South Korea or Mexico after eight seasons at home. He did not mention Major League Baseball.

[Bacchus39]

1. current athelete pay scale according to article

Most Cuban sports players get monthly government salaries of $16. Olympic medalists receive an additional lifetime monthly stipend: $300 for gold medal winners and less for other medalists

[naaman fletcher]

2. They must have been paid by the cia

According to everything I know about Cuba from this forum:

1. There is great healthcare
2. It is a democracy
3. There is freedom of trabel